Top 5 Reasons Realtors Should Serve the Industry with Charlie Oppler

After about nine months, I had recruited the two top independent brokers to co-chair a charity event. So I basically started my career in work in June, July of when it was 1980. God, it goes back a long ways. By 1981, I had a real estate license, was working in the office of one of those two people. Joe Murphy was one, Dick Schlott, who actually installed me virtually as president. So we're going to talk about relationships later, but I guess that tells you where that relationship has been. When 41 years later, that's the person that installed me, and I've been on my own for 30 years.

So I think it speaks volumes to relationships. Got my license, began to sell in 1981-82, and by 1984, I was managing one of the largest offices for the largest independent Realtor in the country. And he basically said to me, Charlie, you should get involved in the local board. I said, well, you know, let me get settled first and learn a little bit more about everything I'm doing. And he said, well, you should get involved. And kind of said, what I'm going to do as a professional on a management side. Next thing you know, I'm chairing a committee in 1988, and eight years later, I'm a president of a local board.

Never dreamed that I'd be a state president or a national president, but, you know, those things happen in our business. You never know what direction it takes you, and I'm here to represent 1,500,000 members today. And I didn't realize how similar our backstories were. I was working for Muscular Dystrophy Association. A kind of similar thing happened with me. I got involved in a fundraiser with a real estate developer here in Houston, and a couple of big builders were there. And I ended up going to work for one of the builders and then ended up getting my license, which was always part of the plan. But it was not my manager. It was my real estate coach that said to me, hey, you should get involved in the real estate association. And my response was, well, why the hell would I do that?

None of them are going to buy a house from me, right? And he said, look, dummy, fortunately, he could call me dummy. And he was like, look, you need to go out and be around people who are better than you. You're part of a small office. You need to go see all these different people. I know we're going to touch on some of that, but I don't know that I would trade my association service for the world, but that was 10 years ago. And for a lot of the reasons we're going to talk about today. And that's when you and I met probably six, seven, eight years ago at an event in Galveston. Yeah. You know that Bob Hale invited me to come and speak about RPAC, which is always a great message and why we are who we are. But he introduced me to what was really a small group of 60, 70 people of which you were one.

And I think shortly thereafter, you were Realtor of the year on the state level and some other things. And, you know, you built you build relationships with people. And it's because of somebody like Bob, who's an icon in the business, knowing how to put people together. And we'll talk about that in a few minutes. Yep. And then, you know, you were when you were running for for the national level, you were at a bunch of our TAR events. And we got to know you pretty well that year. So exciting. Yeah. All right. So we're going to jump into why should Realtors get involved in association service? So I think let's let's break it down before we jump into the first one is there are a number of different ways. And it doesn't necessarily have to be association service.

It could be a service in one of our affiliate groups like NAREP or NAREP or A-R-E-A. You know, those are amazing places to get started, whether it's with your local association or state association or national association, W-C-R. There are just a bunch of different ways for Realtors to get involved. And so when we say get involved in association, I think that you and I would argue those are all involvement, right? Without question. You know, and I think a lot of that, you know, we talk about the origin, how we started in the business, how we started in the local associations is because somebody asked us. That's right. You got involved because, you know, the person you went to work for said get involved.

The person I went to work for said get involved. But more than that, you had to learn as well what involvement meant. So you kind of walk before you run. And for me, our local board had about 3,000 members. Today, we've merged in a couple other things over the years and we're 9,000. And you belong to a board that's 40,000 or 43,000. So, you know, it's about relationships. It's about opportunity. And for me, when I think of why I got involved, you know, it becomes the people. It becomes the people that you learn from. It becomes the talented people in the industry.

And sure, there's some top producers that don't get involved. But at least for me locally, more of the good people got involved, as I've learned over the years. And you don't know that at the time when you get involved. Right. Which kind of leads us into our first topic, which is the ability to learn. And, you know, I'll couple that with what you were just saying with sometimes the local association will have these top producers in that. Maybe they're not involved, but they come and they share. And I wouldn't have the opportunity to pick up the phone and call those people or see them otherwise than when we have these opportunities to learn from them. And, you know, iron sharpens iron. No question. You know, I think back into the early 80s when I got involved, you know, I'm a young guy at that point, not knowing who's going to be the people I learned the most from.

But I listened, you know, and I think that's one of the greatest lessons in leadership is to listen, because you always want to surround yourself with better people. And even this year, as the president, I made sure that I had practitioners serve as liaisons, vice presidents. And for me, it was important to know that if we had a major issue across the country, I could talk to practitioners in the field and say, what's happening in Houston? What's happening in Chicago? What's happening in New Mexico? It doesn't have to be just the big spots. You know, two of my liaisons are from New Mexico and Nebraska, respectively. Two of the smartest people in the business, Wes Graham and Henry Commandel. You know, Henry's always the smartest guy in the room.

Right. OK, so for me, I want to learn from better people and I want to have those people around me to help make a decision that betters our association. But but betters me as an individual. And I think that's where the learning and surrounding yourself with with great talent is so important when you look at the association, look at your own business, look at everything you do on a daily basis. The most important for me is is there two separate things. If I'm not listening, I'm not learning from the top talent. And if I have the top talent around me and I'm doing the talking and not listening, then I'm not going to learn anything. You know, and sometimes the shoes on the other foot and then I know it's my responsibility.

But in the association side, you've got to trust who your teammates are. And in this case, if you put them on your team, you want them to be the ones that help you make a decision. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I remember the first time I walked into an advisory group meeting, I just volunteered for this one management central. It was broker owners. And I'd been a broker owner for all of about 13 minutes when I when I applied for that. And I walked in and I was I was just in awe of these people who I mean, they they spoke. It was almost like a foreign language. And then from there, as I got comfortable, I was fortunate to be able to participate in the Texas Realtors Leadership Program.

And that was just an amazing opportunity to really get exposed to great, great people. And they kind of set the path for all of us. Yeah. And I think one thing we always talk about as well, or you'll hear around the country when you talk to people and and go places. Well, my market's different. Now, your market's not different. This is this is a sales industry, but it's also a skills industry. Those with the best skills generally excel. And there's a lot of times that I hear people say, well, we're a service industry. Well, there are a lot of service industries. I look at ours as a skills business that you you succeed because you're good at what you do.

Not because I, you know, I can open doors as well as anybody or used to. Now I run the company. But anybody can turn the key and get in the door. It's what do you do from there. Right. You know, so I think skills, to your point earlier, you're going to learn from other people in every facet of the business, which makes your skills better. And as you said earlier about the local involvement, one of the things I've seen on the national level that have helped us all learn is you have that three-way agreement between the local association, the state association, and the national association. And national is really the governing body, if you will. But so much that we do is based upon what happens in a local board and subsequently at the state level, because what happens in Texas may be different than what happens in Oregon.

But yet they're just as important on both levels, whether it's advocacy, whether it's operations, whether it's education, whether it's fundraising, whatever it does to enable us to move to the next step, it's because we learn at all three levels. Absolutely. And, you know, to tag on to what you said about if somebody's saying that I don't want to get involved because it's different in my market or whatever that is, great. That's perfect. That's the perfect reason to get involved. Absolutely. You have this giant group think tank of people who are great performers, great Realtors from around the country. Number one, I'm going to steal their good ideas and use them in my market and see if they'll work and take credit for it when they do, but blame them if it doesn't, right?

No question about that. I mean, if you can't take something, I mean, we do every couple of weeks, we have speakers into our company now that the virtual world is a better way to teach. We'll have speakers come into our company and just talk what works about their way of operating business, not what works in Houston or Chicago or Nebraska. What works in the way they do business? Because we can learn from that. You know, each and every day, our agents are talking to agents around the country. Because, A, they've had relationships for a long time. Our business is 30 years old. And we were independent for 17, almost 18, before we affiliated with Sotheby's.

But that was an opportunity that, you know, we had passed on earlier and it made more sense as the business changed in my local market because it's a sub-market of New York City. So, you know, we became a huge bedroom community in New York City. And our average market price is obviously a lot higher than a lot of places in the country, just like San Francisco and Boston because of the major city. But I think the one thing is marketing a home, how you deal with a buyer, how you deal with the consumer at every level is the same. And we try to make sure that our agents see that across the country.

Yeah. The only other thing I was going to add is I'm a naturally curious person. And so I want to know how real estate works in a different market. I want to know how do things work in New Jersey compared to here as far as title or as far as a closing process or whatever. I just find that stuff fascinating more than anything else. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, New Jersey, at least northern New Jersey, the market I serve, which is probably from a little bit south of Newark Airport up to the New York border, both the New York City and Rockland County, we all use attorneys. And we're probably rare across the country because most agents and companies deal directly with the title company.

And even in South Jersey, that's the way business is done. So that's a big adjustment for a lot of people. When they move to this area, they get ready to pursue a transaction. They just want to send their file to a title company. You know, we just let them know that, you know, there's an agreement between the Realtor association and the bar association that they have to be offered an opportunity to have legal representation. Now, they can waive that, but they may feel that they're at a disadvantage. And not that one attorney is going to take advantage of somebody else. It's just the way we do business. Right. And I'm still amazed that, you know, transactions go right through title companies, even though I see the process.

But I know how much more Realtor has to do in that transaction in many cases. Yeah. See, learn something new every day. Absolutely. All right. So number two on our list is the opportunity to work with the industry's best, which we talked a little bit in number one. But we can dive a little bit deeper on that. Yep. To me, it's just real simple. I've always felt that if you want something done, you find a busy person to do it. And it seems like the managers and some of the top agents and the top thinkers, at least, again, in the marketplaces that I've worked, have been the best talent. And I think it's also your responsibility in terms of getting involvement is to go find that person as a leader and ask them to get involved.

Because sometimes the only reason they're not involved is nobody's asked them. You know, we all we all know who asked us to get involved. We all know who asked us to make our first investment in our pack. And we all know who told us the story of why you're involved. And it could be three people. It could be the same person. So to me, when when good talent asks good talent or unknown talent to get involved, you're just by extension going to be a better group of people to serve others. And I just think that's our responsibility in terms of serving our industry. Yeah, I 100% agree. I mean, the people when I go to our pack conference, when I go to state conference, when I go, I mean, not only have they become some of my favorite people just to be around, but they're just brilliant business people.

The stuff that they do. I'm just like, that's, that's, that's great. I want to do that. But let's, let's talk offline. And yeah, I hate to say it, but yeah, it's like any other conference. A lot of the business happens at the bar. Right. It happens at the bar. It happens in a gym. It happens on a golf course. There's so many other things that happen because you share a lot of the same hobbies. You know, Vince, Vince Malt and I talk early in the morning all through the last COVID year. And he's still very helpful to me, you know, as a past president, none of us expected to have to deal through leadership through COVID. You know, you and I could have done, would never have thought of doing this 18 months ago.

Absolutely not. This podcast is a product of COVID because I kept telling all my agents, you got to start doing video. You just got to start doing video. You got to start thinking about different ways to get out there. And then I realized that I wasn't really leading by example. And so I was like, okay, well, I had, I'd had the idea for doing something like this Top 5, but I'd never really done it. So we just started doing it. And guess what? You could have done it pre-COVID. Right. Could have. Think about how long we've had video capabilities and, and so many other capabilities that none of us really used to the fullest degree. You know, as somebody said to me, technology's changed our business. Check technology, in my opinion, changed the way we can do business.

It doesn't replace relationships and it doesn't replace doing so many things that we've always done, but it's made those, those tasks easier. And this is certainly a way that we can share some thoughts, whether it's five people that listen or 5,000, you know, if you affect one person, it's been worth it. That's exactly it. You know, we, we started in our brokerage, we started doing a, an in-depth session because, you know, you go to a lot of real estate training, you go to meetings, you go to things like that, or you read a book. And your whole goal is, if I can take one or two things from this and put it in my business, great. But you tend to kind of jump around on topics a lot. And so we started doing, we just took one topic and we just dive deep into it.

And it's not something that we probably would have done prior to everybody just being able to jump on a Zoom call real quick. And let's take an hour and let's just talk this through. Well, I think that's an important part too, is we've also learned in the beginning, you could sit for two and three hours on Zoom because you had no choice. Now we know it's got to be direct pointed and a half hour to an hour really is the maximum that anybody will listen. And you've got to make your points and move forward. Yeah. It's funny because you think back to when we first started getting on Zoom and the limit was 40 minutes. Everybody got mad because you could only do 40 minutes unless you paid for an account or something. But now you're like, well, maybe Zoom had it right. Yeah. That 40 minute number is pretty, pretty solid.

Yeah. No question about it. Yeah. All right. So we've got the ability to learn and we've got working with the industry best. And then number three on our list is the responsibility to do more and give back. Yeah. I think that's big for me. You know, people ask me what now amounts to five years ago because I'm only about 45 days from the end of my presidency. It's Charlie White. You know, why do you want to do this? And I served in a regional vice president's class, what we call RVPs, back in 2005 with John Smabee, Chris Polychrone, Vicki Cox-Golder from New Mexico, Steve Brown from Ohio, and Mo Vesey from Florida.

So I'm actually the sixth president to serve from that class, which really is an amazing thing because, as we all know in the industry, an RVP class is really random how you get there in a given year. In addition, there's two DSAs, Gene Crosby from Illinois and Bob Kulik from California. So as I continued, you know, up the ladder, if you will, serving on committees, I was building my company. So I didn't have any thought of being a president and was younger than many of them, you know, at that point that I served back in 2005. But they instilled in me, very simply, that the only opportunity you're going to have to make this industry better is to do more.

And we already instill in our company, and we've done for a long time, is you get better in everything you do by giving more in your community. I mean, we make a living in our communities. So if you're not doing something for your community, then you're missing a great opportunity just to be part of your community, but also to build relationships and enhance opportunities. But to do it for the right reasons. You know, I think the bottom line is, we're all involved every day. Make your community better. If your community is better, then it's a better place to live. Values are stronger. Relationships are stronger. There's pride of ownership and all of that.

So for me, it's two separate things. It's doing more in the community and doing more on the professional side. So to me, it's what can you do more without losing what you do? And certainly, as you said earlier, I'm involved and we've been involved in all of our offices and all the communities. And that's the best satisfaction because you're there when somebody needs you. Yeah, you know, I talked about this a lot in our brokerage and I've mentioned it on this show before, but yeah, I think one of the things that Realtors are not very good at, and I don't think that it's inherently that they're just bad at it. I just don't think they take the time for it, is recognizing, just taking a second to slow down and recognize the impact that they have on the communities that they serve and the impact that they have on the people that they serve.

And, you know, you can romanticize it and say, picture a kid in a backyard on a swing and you had something to do with that. Picture the first time homebuyer, you know, realizing a dream and you get to be a part of that. And to me, that's just an amazing thing to be able to do on a day in and day out basis. Yeah, 100%. I'll tell you a quick story, too, that just resonates with me. John Smabee in 2019, as our NAR president, talked about telling your story. And all of us do things, but most of us don't publicize it because it looks like it's self-promotion. Well, they were redoing a park in an area of Minneapolis, and this goes back, I don't know, two, three, four years ago, prior to John being the president.

And a bunch of Realtors were redoing a park in a so-so neighborhood in terms of up and coming. And the park was blighted and just beaten up and so on and so forth. Well, the mayor called John and he said, can you get a bunch of Realtors? I think we've got some people that donate a few things and we've got to build this park pretty quick for the kids. And John, it was a place where it was a nasty cold day. And John was inside a building adjacent to the park. And after they completed all their work, they kind of just tried to get warm, cup of hot chocolate. And he said a six-year-old kid came up to him and said, mister, can I go play here?

Not even knowing how important that was, because this is a kid that didn't have a park. Right. Had no place to play. And John just said, you know, here's a cup of hot chocolate you can play for the rest of your life there. You know, we do this for the community. Weeks go by and the mayor calls him. He said, John, I didn't see the promotions anywhere about what you did. And John said, you know what? I didn't think about it. He said, all I thought about was making this neighborhood in Minneapolis a better place to live. Yep. And that was where that whole concept of we should tell our story to inspire others to do that, which is what I've tried to do this year. We had volunteer week from September 28th to October 3rd on the national level.

And we just asked people to send in their stories, you know, to the Realtors A Good Neighbor site, just so somebody else can see what somebody else did and learn from it. Because if it works in Minneapolis, guess what? It works any place in the country. Yep. And I think it's one of our responsibilities. I think, you know, if we're invested in making sure that the places that we work are vibrant communities where everybody wants to live and can live and reach their full potential, that's our service. And we have the ability to do it. You know, we should never underestimate how we're perceived in a community. You know, how many times have you been asked to sponsor a Little League team or an event at a school or, you know, town fair day?

I mean, I could list hundreds. And it's individuals as well as companies. Well, you know, doing something in a park with all the grants that are available at NAR for, you know, smart growth and community service. To me, we should be doing that across the country every year. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. All right. Number four on our list, relationships, which we've talked a little bit about once again already, because I don't think that you can talk about the other things that we've talked about without touching on relationships. But like you said, 41 years later, you got installed by. Yeah, somebody I went to work for in 1984, but I met in 1981, installed me, albeit virtually, as president of the National Association of Realtors.

But I think when I look at the relationships, it's, you know, you and I are having this conversation, not because we socialize or we're best friends, but we met each other, ended up talking for an hour, have stayed in touch. Just, you know, casually, but respectfully, knowing that if I had something down in Houston, I've got five, six, seven people I could pick up the phone and call. If it was Austin, it's the same thing. And I'll give you really an example when I think about relationships. My daughter went to the University of South Carolina, graduated in 2018. I think that's right. We've all lost track of time. And the most important thing to me is when she was a freshman, they had a hurricane or flooding on campus.

Within a day or two of the campus closing, she had already left with a friend to drive home. Okay. To New Jersey, 10 and a half hours. But within, I don't know, hours of that announcement, I got a call from two Realtors in South Carolina. Jay Reinhardt, who you know, and Donna Smith, who both lived near the campus and said, do you need me to do anything? Okay. You can't replace that comfort. You know, Kemper Funkhauser's in Harrisonburg, Virginia, which is where James Madison University is at, where my son's a senior. I needed some help on something. I picked up the phone, had a phone call, and he helped me out. Hey, I'll tell the story.

Two months ago, I picked up the phone and called you. Because me and my family were in Chicago, and we wanted to see the Realtor building. And it was closed down because of quarantine. And next thing you know, we're getting, like, basement to rooftop tour of all the new stuff. And, I mean, yeah, it's just those little relationships that you can pick up and reach out. And you know what? You never feel like you're an imposition. No. You know, and that's how I felt with Jay and Donna and Kemper. And when you reached out for me, you didn't feel like you were putting me in a bad position. You said, you know what? You said to your family, if we're going to get in, let me make one phone call or send one text. And, you know, maybe we're obsessed and we have our phones too close to us at times because that's our industry.

But, you know, I sent out two messages and I said, if there's a possibility, a friend of mine is in front of the building or near the building with his family and is anybody around. Because Chicago had, you know, stricter COVID regulations in terms of us being able to operate, which I think we're now at the ability to be back on a limited basis, about 50%. You know, there's other places that are wide open. There's other places that still have restrictions and you've got to work with that. But again, to me, relationships are why I'm involved as well is because I've made some of the best friends I have, you know, as you get on in years in our industry and around the country. So you go and visit somebody or go to an area, chances are you're staying at a Realtor's house.

And I guess the best example I'd give you is if I had to drive cross country, I'd never have to stay in a hotel. For sure. And, you know, if you're listening to this and that sounds all good and well, but also it's good for business, right? Like if I knew somebody moving to Northern New Jersey, I'm picking up the phone and calling you. Yep. Yeah. If you had somebody moving to Houston, maybe you're picking up the phone and calling me. Yeah. These are relationships that can go two ways. You know, and the funny part about that is I get calls from brokers around the country that don't know New Jersey. And they'll call me and say, do you serve this area? And I'll say no. And a couple of years ago, I got a phone call from somebody in Guam, Ryan de Guzman. He said a friend of his that lives in Washington state was being transferred into service and he wanted to live in a certain area.

And it's an area that we don't serve. And I called somebody from a different company because I knew them. I didn't even think about the Sotheby's relationship. I thought about the person I knew that I would trust with the customer in that neighborhood. I introduced the two of them and they made the deal. We didn't get any referral fee, right? I'm not part of the transaction, but I feel like I made the deal and feel just as good about it as this person getting their home. Yeah, for sure. You know, so that's, I think relationships go further than anything at all walks of life. Yeah, I mean, we all know, we all know the old saying that it's not always what you know, but sometimes it's who you know. You know, and I think the other part to it, you go with the same other saying with Maya Angelou.

It's not what you say and it's not what you do. It's how you made them feel. And Ryan made me feel great when he said, Charlie, I didn't know who to call. In fact, I looked at a map just to make sure New Jersey was the right place. Because, you know, you don't think about it all the time. And this was somebody on top of it was a service person. So, you know, to be helpful to somebody in the service, not take any fee and make sure that the transaction went well. And you know what? I'll take a thousand of those over making a dollar. Absolutely, absolutely. All right. And last but not least is advocacy. Let's talk about that. Yeah. I'll give you the best example of advocacy, because if you were to ask every Realtor in the country, what's the most important thing that we do?

Take the relationships and the learning and all that aside. It's how we protect private property rights for every person in the country. Amen. Whether it's residential, commercial, just basic rights to do what you want with your property. We're the best at advocacy. Texas is great. Houston is great. The National Association of Realtors really has no equal. And I'm going to give you a great story that I shared actually last week with the California Association of Realtors. Last Tuesday, I got a phone call from our D.C. office for the National Association of Realtors asking me if I could be at the White House on Wednesday.

Well, if you know me, I wasn't that excited about having to go to D.C. for the day. Because I was supposed to go to California for the for their meetings. And then I was going to help install the ARIA president, Tim Herr from Georgia on Saturday. I said, you know, I'm going to be on a plane. So I told Joe Harris, who's one of our chief lobbyists, that I couldn't make it. About a half hour later, I get a phone call from somebody at NAR along with Joe Harris and said, you know, there's not many chances you get to be on stage with the president, with the secretary of treasury yelling and only two or three other people. You think you think you could change your schedule. Well, I was on a train at six so I could be at the D.C. building at nine, do three Zoom calls, one in northern Virginia, one in Maine and one at a local board.

When that was done at 12 o'clock. Joe brought his car around, drove us to the White House, you know, because there is certain parking restrictions. We went through about six levels of security before I got on stage with President Biden, Secretary Yellen, the Office of Public Engagement, Cedric Richmond. The first female CEO of Citibank and Jane Frazier, Janice Frazier, Janine Frazier, Craig Hayes, who's the CEO of Raytheon, which is the largest defense contractor, one of them in the world. And myself, President of the National Association of Realtors, it hit me at that moment that Charlie Oppler wasn't on stage.

The National Association of Realtors and what we do on the advocacy level was on stage. And when I think about all the dollars we've raised with our PAC and investments we've made, all the grants that we've issued and helped, all the issues, mobilization funds to fight things across the country, that was on stage. And the fact that there were five other people on a Zoom screen, like we've all seen, except at the White House, it's not a Zoom screen, it's a movie theater. The CEO of J.P. Morgan, Jamie Dimon, CEO of Bank of America, Brian Moynihan, the head of Intel, the head of NASDAQ, head of Deloitte, and then somebody from AARP.

OK, that was the nine of us. And to think that ourselves and the Association of Retired People were the two industries to talk about the debt ceiling and what harm it could do to the country, because that's not a political issue. That's a credit rating. That's paying off the debt at Fannie and Freddie with $8.6 trillion in government-backed loans. It's interest rates. It's everything that we do as 18% of the economy and 4% of small business. That was all on stage, not me. So when you think about advocacy and you think about the respect that we have around the real estate world, if you will, across this country, everybody knows that we're the ones that are fighting for private property rights.

Let's go back to the beginning of COVID, right? The first CARES package. You had unemployment benefits for independent contractors. You were eligible for PPP loans. Yep. And we know, without that security, we might have had members that couldn't have sustained themselves. OK? Nobody knew that four months later, the real estate market would open up the way it did. But it opened up because we had our business declared essential, knowing that in each state it was different, but from a federal level that it was an essential because, very simply, we're 18% of the economy. Yeah, I mean, I know here in Houston and in Texas, I know for sure that our association leadership in Houston and our association leadership at the state level, I mean, they were in the room when those decisions were being made on who was and wasn't essential.

And, you know, that's just an incredible influence and opportunity that we get. And, you know, going back up to number four here is relationships are with our elected officials as well. And, you know, they start at the local level, they go to the state level and sometimes the national level. But, you know, it's not unusual for us to be walking around the statehouse and seeing guys who are on, you know, a local water board or local school board or city council. How about Kevin Brady? Yeah. A local guy in Houston ends up as the chair of Ways and Means for President Trump. Yep. I mean, there's no better example. And you were his friend at the Houston Association of Realtors 25 years ago.

That's right. And Vicki Fullerton, I think, was his FPC. Yep. And when tax reform hit. Yep. We got to be part of that conversation because of those relationships. Yeah. And you know what? One size doesn't fit all. And we know that. But overriding that is protecting private property rights. You know, the tax structure in Texas is different than New Jersey. And we all recognize so many different facets that go on. But certainly protecting private property rights and our ability to do real estate in every state is why we're there in D.C. And I don't think there's a better organization and certainly a more respected organization between any of the trade associations in D.C. than the National Association of Realtors.

I would agree 100%. And if you're watching this or listening to it and you want more information on that, I recently recorded an episode of this show with Lee Brown, who was also very so involved in our PAC that she ended up actually running for Congress. And so we talk a lot about why we should be paying attention to politics and advocacy in our business. And so you can go back and watch that if you'd like. And just on that point, she's serving this year as the vice president of the National Association of Realtors, overseeing our advocacy and government affairs. And, you know, we have two completely different backgrounds. Right. We don't agree on a lot of things, but we do agree on what we're doing for the association and what we do for Realtors day in and day out, but not just Realtors, for the public.

That's right. We're protecting private property rights that we're only, you know, part of that equation. But we're doing it for Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner. Yeah, I don't think that most, I don't think Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner really recognize the fact that their local Realtor is kind of that last line of defense between government intruding on their private property rights and not. Yeah, I mean, if you did a survey and asked a homeowner to define eminent domain, you know, they might think it's something that happened in the 1600s when it can happen to anybody. So, you know, I take great pride in what we've done at that level because I've been involved, you know, for 25 years in the government affairs side, just like you've been involved locally, you know, 10 plus years.

We're always advocating for what is right for the homeowner and the property owner because it also extends into commercial property and zoning and streamlining that process. And, you know, that's going to be a big challenge in the next couple of years is to repurpose a lot of office building and retail space as things go online and people don't go back to work at the same velocity that they were prior to COVID. But, you know, a lot of those issues existed before COVID. Right. You know, so we'll help and we'll continue to be there. And if you're sitting there thinking that you don't want to get involved because you don't like politics or you don't like politicians, hey, nobody likes politicians. But I will tell you, you know, I was that person.

Like my story of how I got involved in governmental affairs things, I was anti anything having to do with TREPAC, which is the Texas version of RPAC because of people that they supported in the past and things like that. And then, again, thankful to that Texas Realtor's leadership program, I got exposed to the state governmental affairs staff and exactly what they do. And I mean, I distinctly remember on the bus there, I'll never invest in RPAC, I'll never invest in RPAC and on the way home, sheepishly writing a check. You know, I think the most important thing is that so many of our members that are now major investors and just supportive of the Realtors Political Action Committee, RPAC, it's about learning.

You know, when you write a check, that's one thing, write the check, knowing why you wrote the check is another thing. Absolutely. That's what you learned. And now you're now you're an advocate and you can tell that story to somebody else. And it's not about what you give, it's that you got involved. That's right. And to me, that's what counts. That's right. I think that's a pretty solid way to end that show. That's right there. So just to recap, the Top 5 reasons why a Realtor should get involved in some sort of association service is, number one, the ability to learn. Number two is working with the best in the industry and in a lot of cases learning from them. Our responsibility to do more and give back in the community and the profession, the relationships that you build, and last but not least, the advocacy and what that can do for the future of our industry.

And really the way that we know homeownership and commercial property ownership as it is. I couldn't agree more. And, you know, when you talk about relationships, Chance, think about just like the Realtor Relief Foundation. You know, and I'll close with that. This year we're going to raise almost eight and a half million dollars because we were an association that just was based on disaster fundraising. So because this is the 20th anniversary of the 9-11 atrocities, and that's when the Realtor Relief Foundation started, when we helped 4,000 families with $8 million within a matter of a few months.

That now over 20 years is $33 million, 17,000 families, including a number of things in Texas. And last year you had a winter that nobody in their right mind could ever imagine. That's right. Yet the association sought help, and fortunately that's what we do as giving back. But, you know, we always feel the responsibilities to help one another. But there's a perfect example of things that just aren't seen on the day-to-day. Yep, and that got involved with the Louisiana Association after the hurricane there, so. Yeah, I saw that, and kudos to you and your team for filling up that truck and just heading out to help them.

And, you know, we always try to help one another, and I look at our responsibility at every level. The advocacy is helping somebody. They don't know that we're protecting their rights, but we're doing it. That's right. And that, to me, is the beauty of what we do, is to do it because it's right, not because we have to. That's who we are. That's a great way to finish it. That's who we are. Charlie, thank you so much, man. Always a pleasure to get to talk to you. Thank you for everything that you do for Realtors. I know that it is an incredible responsibility and not one that you were planning on having to do half virtual when you got into it. But, you know, for my money, you're the best.

We sure do appreciate you. Well, I appreciate the friendship and, more importantly, everything that you do for everyone. So, hopefully, I'll get to see you soon again. Yep. All right. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Jens. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Top 5. We hope that you're able to take some of these, put them into your business, and help your business grow. And we'll see you on the next episode. Take care.